Reflecting on BW and Looking Ahead to Gen VI - SEE POST #508

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Hm, wonder what would happen if entry hazards suddenly turned mutually exclusive? Placing one would rid your side of the previous ones? At least in Doubles, you could come across people who target their own teammates with Spikes to get rid of the Stealth Bug (hey, we're being hypothetical!) the opponent placed there.

It would also open up for more flavours of hazards. Hazards would eventually be overpowered if you were allowed to stack them endlessly, and GameFreak should be aware of this. If they ever want to make more entry hazards, they will have to limit their stackability sooner or later. As long as you can stack them, there's a limit to how many different hazards you can have in the game, or they become overpowered. On the other hand, all the bigger waste when your opponents finally Spin them away. However, adding diversity and power to a tactic that only has a single counter wouldn't be very smart, balance-wise. Thus, any further buffs to hazards would also require new or more reliable ways to remove them.

Logically, we're down to four options:
1. GameFreak will not add more entry hazards in the future, making us play with them just like we currently do.
2. More hazards to play with, but also a buff to removing them, to prevent overpowering.
3. More hazards, but also a change in entry hazard mechanics to prevent overpowering (limits to how many different hazards can be placed, or similar), but the ways to remove them stays the same.
4. More hazards, but no further counters, making the strategy more powerful.

I, for one, would love to see temporary hazards once in the future. Say, glowing hot coals that would cause burns (or cause Fire damage à la Stealth Rock) if the opponent switched the next turn (or the next two, but certainly not longer), but cool after that and become useless. A sort of "partial trapping" move. You'd be allowed to switch to your heart's content, but it would come at a cost. Bonus points for strategies involving switching to Guts abusers, and counter-strategies including Pursuit or anti-Guts-user moves on hazard setters.

I know this doesn't really make any "sense", but a way to nerf entry hazards and also buff Poison types would be to have them absorb all entry hazards (like they already do with Toxic Spikes, but with everything instead). I know it doesn't really make sense that a Poison-type Pokemon would absord Stealth Rock, but from a competitive aspect, it would certainly make them more viable and help balance out the different types a bit.

In 3rd Generation, they introduced Spikes and Rapid Spin, which became a huge part of the metagame. 4th Generation saw the introduction of Stealth Rock, a move that has single-handedly crushed the dreams of Charizard and co., and Toxic Spikes, a unique hazard that is important, but also interesting (absorbed by Poison Types and doesn't deal direct damage). 5th Generation introduced Magic Guard and Magic Bounce, which have enabled a bunch of teams to stand a chance in hazard wars without devoting too much team space to them.

It's interesting how Entry Hazards have evolved into their own sort of mini-game. When I explain Pokemon to a friend, I obviously don't start with Entry Hazards. However, as one starts to play competitively, it becomes very hard to continue past a point without understanding how to win hazard wars. The very fact that we have terms like "hazard war" or "spinblocking" or even "Spike-Stacking" goes to show how big of a deal it is.

In 6th Generation, I really want to see another way to spinblock without a Ghost type. May be an item that prevents Rapid Spin, or a move that is a spamable Protect but only blocks Rapid Spin. Currently, I feel that very few teams carry Ghost types and (when I play) rarely have to worry about not getting a spin off, which removes some of the interest of the game. Will they switch in their Ghost? Should I predict and go to Tyranitar / Weavile? What if I over predict?

Spikes and Rapid Spin are from the 2nd Generation, not third, RSE din't introduced anything to hazards at all, they just made it stackable. The 4th Generation introduced Stealth Rock, the most broken move always made, and... Toxic Spikes. The 5th Generation did nothing against or in favor of the hazards, they just keep it as it is without any modification, maybe they din't debuffed it thinking Volt Turn could be too broken without hazards around.

Anyway, Hazards DOESN'T need any kind of buff, they are already too broken with Stealth Rock, Spinblock is barely a problem with some nice Ghost-types around, and even if you don't carry Ghosties, you just need to K.O the spinner, and with exception of few, the spinners are really horrible, not exactly because they're bad, but because you have to forgoe a move slot in order to use Rapid Spin; a move that doesn't do anything else than remove hazards, that makes troubles.

They could at least make Rapid Spin more widely distributed. We're finding at the moment that the move is so scarce that a lot of otherwize average Pokemon get huge usage in their respective tiers just for Rapid Spin.

It should have similar distribution to Explosion imo, being given to every vaguely circular or spherical Pokemon.

And now that we're on that, I wish they'd change the mechanics of Explosion and Selfdestruct back to how they were for Gen II-IV. It's such a fun move imo.

Spikes and Rapid Spin are from the 2nd Generation, not third, RSE din't introduced anything to hazards at all, they just made it stackable.

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Sorry; thanks, I didn't know that before.

But I find that the very presence of hazards warps the game around them. I suppose a hazard-less game would look radically different, but then it's like the introduction of auto-weather into OU. Suddenly, we had pokemon fall or rise in usage solely dependent on how they could adapt of be countered by certain weathers.

Just like winning a weather war is important if you run a weather team (52% of the OU, which is more than 1/2), winning the hazard war is becoming a big issue.

I do wish for a different kind of rapid spin though. May be a move that removes all hazards, but it doesn't damage so it can be taunted (so it isn't broken). Either way, Game Freak can't do nothing about the issue of hazards.

Rapid Spin, broken? I will just lol, sowwie. It's a good move, granted, it's maybe the best support move of the game, granted, but that's just because how overpowered is Stealth Rock, and how it hinder the 30%+ of the entire metagame, and nothing stop your hazard setter of just do it's job again, while the spinners are offen KOed without any major trouble, as they had to waste a switch-in, the turn to use Rapid Spin, and comeback once gain to Rapid Spin one more time, in other words, they need to handle almost 3 turns of attacks, and that's a hard task, really hard, and more when you consider the Rapid Spinners are weak to hazards, generally.

Also, the unique reason to carry a spinner is when you carry one of those Pokémon that form part of the 30% hindered by Stealth Rock, and a good player should always carry a check or counter to Bug/Flying/Fire/Ice, as they are important types, even if on our current OU it doesn't looks like too much thanks to Stealth Rock, but a good player should not counter/check 4 entire types with just a single hazard move, that's silly. And some use spinners for some stall teams with cores that needs of a lot of switches.

It's not really that hard to keep rocks on the field, spinblock with a ghost if you need to keep rocks and stuff ALL the game, otherwise, just predict the switch-in of the spinner, attack it, attack it, and attack it one more time when it comeback, you're done, set up rocks again, be happy, you don't need to transform Rapid Spin into an entire support move for keeping it at the field.

After all, you just need to take care of 18 users of Rapid Spin, that's the complete number of users, and of those 18: Sandslash doesn't work outside of Sandstorm and is countered by the same that counter almost any Sandstorm attacker, Hitmontop and figther friends are too weak to even switch-in at all, Torkoal is weak to all hazards, Claydol is useless apart from Rapid Spin, Excadrill was banned, Cryogonal is weak to Stealth Rock and it's physical defense is literally thin paper, Tentacruel doesn't work too well outside the rain, Kabutops can't take hits, Delibird is Delibird, Spinda is Spinda, and Armando is weak to all hazards. So, Forrestress, Starmie, Donphan, and Blastoise are the unique trully "good" users of Rapid Spin (with the niches of Tentacruel under the rain, Sandslash under the sand, and... end list), and it's easy to handle them on the team building (STAB Grass ends 4/6, HP Fire Forrestress, Earthquake the last).

On the topic of Rapid Spin, I feel GameFreak should give Rapid Spinners access to recovery moves! The main reason most people choose not to use Rapid Spinners is due to their overall short longevity, and may only be able to spin once per match. The lower tier spinners don't have it nearly as bad as OU since they don't have to worry about Rain boosted Hydro Pumps and constant Draco Meteors. Although Blastoise and Hitmontop would sure as hell love recovery, I feel like Forretress and hell even Donphan would become much more useful if they had some form of recovery to increase their longevity. I just find it quite annoying that the only Rapid Spinner in OU that gets a form of recovery is Starmie, who can't take a hit at all.

Allows for 1/16 Hp regain for a couple turns. Heck, even a entry move that heals instead of damages would be great. Something like stealth rock but heals pokes upon switching in would be kind cool.

Then perhaps give whirlwind and hurricane a 30% chance to remove rocks from the field, and allow bulldoze, earthequake, magnitude the opportunity (~30%) to rid the field of spikes and/or toxic spikes, even if the move is used against flying types. Makes Whirlwind move useful, as well as hurricane (make it so that hurricane under rain has less chance of blowing stealth rocks away).

So many people have been complaining about how hard it is to spin, and how hard it is to prevent hazards from overpowering the metagame. What if there was a move to remove hazards, that wasn't effected by type immunities? BAM, Defog is your man. Hate that your Zapdos, or in that matter, any Flying-type from Gen I-IV is weak to rocks? Why not let them take the matter into their own hands, and let them remove it themselves. I seriously think Defog as a spin move would balance PERFECTLY. Yes, it's more or less a guaranteed spin, but the spinner is also guaranteed weak to rocks, bar Gliscor or Skarmory. The move can be taunted as well, so there is a way way to prevent the foe from removing hazards, just like in today's game. On the other hand, most flying types have access to Roost, so that after they spin, they can remove any hazard damage they took. In addition to all this, they would be hazard-removers that are immune to T-spikes/Spikes, which is awesome. All things considered, the ''foggers'' of tomorrow would have an easier time than today's spinners at removing hazards, but to be fair, hazards are INCREDIBLY hard to remove in today's meta, so this would be very helpful at bringing balance back to the way hazards work: Easy to set up, easy to remove - a fair exchange.

People are also spamming a lot about weather, and how overpowered *overcentralizing weather is in today's metagame. I see "A move that removes all weather going on would help" or something along the lines of "just removing the current weather condition and setting it back to clear skies until it is changed again", etc. Well, what existing move makes perfect sense for this job? Yes, DEFOG. Seriously, the move description for Defog in Gen VI could be something like:Defog: Removes all the shit that is currently cluttering up the battlefield.
It would be like 'hold-on, let me reset this battlefield for a bit', kinda like giving the player a do-over button [for the field] in the form of a move. Don't like the Sandstorm + Stealth Rocks + 2 Spikes + Leech Seed the opponent's sand team has accumulated? Switch into your Skarm/Gliscor/Viable GenIV Flyer and go for a quick Defog, get a fresh start.

I have thought this over extensively, and for only one move, it really helps with all the balance problems that have been plaguing the Gen V metagame for so long. If this does somehow happen, I'd be over the moon. But the likeliness of Game Freak thinking of something like this themselves? 0/10

I do wish for a different kind of rapid spin though. May be a move that removes all hazards, but it doesn't damage so it can be taunted (so it isn't broken).

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TheCanadianWifier's concept of Defog was what I was trying to go for, but I suck at explaining. Since Defog can be taunted (and perhaps fails if used against Magic Coat or Magic Bounce Pokemon) it too can be stopped, but it enables another way to remove hazards from the field.

Balance is key too. We can't just create a move that does all that stuff and leave no way for it to be countered. Entry Hazards would become almost non-existent, which robs the game of an interesting side of it (though one that's admittedly a little too broken).

One thing I like about that is that weather teams wouldn't run Defog, giving a clear advantage to Weatherless.

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You know, I didn't even think of this. But that would really help with making weatherless a more viable strategy. If don't run weather, you get to use a more safe and secure form of hazard removal, fogging. If you do decide to run weather, you're either forced to be stupid [defog in rain after poli dies, lol], or to run the inferior Rapid Spin :]

Ok some of these changes are fine but IMO some would ruin the meta. I would really like stall viable again but everyone wants dragons debuffed but stop hating them. Weather too doesnt need debuffed except some good ones I've seen. I'll post what I want to see.
Snorlax gets slack off because it's logical.
Dragon/ghost type viable in ou
Cofagrigus gets steel type
Gyarados gets a water dragon typing
Team preview still exists but we can't switch a poke around and choose our lead at the beginning.
An ability that frees weather
Defog gets rid of weather
More pokes gets rapid spin and rapid spin stays the only hazards removing move.
More good ghosts
No more types/weathers
Skarm evolution would maybe be good not sure
When a weather inducer dies so does the weather seems logical as how can a poke summon weather when it's fainted.
Sleep to gen 4 is a must.
Explosion not sure about.
Very few more complete op Pokemon.
No more weather inducers
Fire/Dragon
Rock slide 100% accurate
That's all for now

I want what we all want in Gen 6, a balanced metagame. I've read about the first 9 pages and a lot of the ideas seem really nice. Unfortunately, Game Freak will not give them to us. There will be new moves, new defensive pokemon, new offensive pokemon, and new mechanics, but the power creep will continue.
If we want a balanced game, we will have to create it ourselves.

I also thought Gen 5 OU could have been handled better. Lets face it, Gen 5 OU is going to end up the worst tier of the generation, possibly the worst tier in the history of pokemon.

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I'm just reading back through the thread now, so these may seem like old news, but these are some of the most important points I've seen brought up.

No. Game Freak won't help us out by offering some new options for balancing OU. Yes, they will keep introducing more and more powerful threats, and continue the inevitable power creep; because that's what makes them money. They still target the younger audiences, and as a 10 year old boy, would you rather have some lame, slow wall that can take any hit, or some badass dragon capable of tearing apart society? The dragon, obviously. But, regardless of what gets introduced, you know who has the power to give the big middle finger to Game Freak? Us. As a community, we can choose what seems too OP for a balanced meta, and what isn't. I completely agree with cocoon's opinion that Gen V OU was the worst metagame ever created in the history of competitive pokemon. But whose fault was that? Not Game Freak's, they only gave us the tools to create the metagame, it was up to the Smogon community to decide the tiers. Blaming GF and Nintendo for the bad metagame would be like blaming a baker for creating shitty cookies, after supplying him with fresh ingredients. It's not the supplier's fault that the cookies were shitty, the baker was given all the necessary tools to create something wonderful. But the baker fucked up, and he's the only one that you can blame.
Relating this back to pokemon, we, the smogon community are the only ones to blame for OU sucking so bad this gen. All I can hope, is that we've learned our lesson this time around, through suffering almost 2 years of this garbage, and we won't make the same mistakes again. Otherwise, competitive pokemon is about to taste a whole lot shittier for years to come.

I agree with TheCanadianWifier, but would like to point something out.

It's been said that the Gen 5 UU is looking like Gen 4 OU. Consider what that statement means. It means that there has been a power creep so large that an entire tier has shifted down one. (I understand that pokemon like Salamence remain OU. But playstyles are the things changing, not the pokemon,which still means a lot). Smogon may be good at balancing the game, but it's not perfect. This generation has introduced so many game changing things that we can't fix them all. While I understand that times change, enough is enough. Stall has been dwindling and Baton Pass teams have almost vanished from the face of the earth.

By the way, I hope that Gamefreak does slip more humor into the games. While some things infuriate me, it's always funny to see out of the way things like Shedinja with Final Gambit or Spinda with Contrary. I hope they add some more touches to their games like that. (Steel type with Toxic Boost?)

I agree with TheCanadianWifier, but would like to point something out.

It's been said that the Gen 5 UU is looking like Gen 4 OU. Consider what that statement means. It means that there has been a power creep so large that an entire tier has shifted down one. (I understand that pokemon like Salamence remain OU. But playstyles are the things changing, not the pokemon,which still means a lot). Smogon may be good at balancing the game, but it's not perfect. This generation has introduced so many game changing things that we can't fix them all. While I understand that times change, enough is enough. Stall has been dwindling and Baton Pass teams have almost vanished from the face of the earth.

By the way, I hope that Gamefreak does slip more humor into the games. While some things infuriate me, it's always funny to see out of the way things like Shedinja with Final Gambit or Spinda with Contrary. I hope they add some more touches to their games like that. (Steel type with Toxic Boost?)

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Smogon handles individual threats. The suspect testing process is 2 months long, essentially. You can't do the sweeping changes needed through that. This gen saw Chansey drop to UU. Heck, UU Victini, Abomasnow and Mew. OU is so broken that a STAB base-power 180 move off a Fairy just doesn't cut it. Something's got to change for gen VI, and I'm not sure what. Speed and power are both major problems, and it's not like Smogon can just ban the 30 most offensive pokemon that aren't already Uber.

The move can be taunted as well, so there is a way way to prevent the foe from removing hazards, just like in today's game.

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This comparison is not really honest. If you bring your "defoger" in game, and the opponent doesn't have taunt (which is not often used) and can't OHKO , you guaranty that you can remove hazard. Absolutely different from rapid spin, which can be avoided by switching a ghost type in.

Hazards (notice the "s") are not that easy to spread, especially if Deoxys-D leaves OU. You really think that a move able to clear 6 turn of set up (5 spikes and SR) without drawback would be balanced ?
I wouldn't complain about defog clearing the weather and only SR (one turn to set-up SR, one turn to remove it, both can be taunted, seems fair). It would put less pressure on teams that use spinner only because of their SR weakness. And, it would make spikes and t-spikes a little bit more interesting, as rapid spin would be much less used because of defog.

Taunt is a heck of a lot more common than ghost-types, and most taunters would be far better at 'spinblocking' than the relatively frail and niche ghosts we have in OU. Besides, if they do defog your hazards, you can set them up again, just like happens today.